


Freshman Flu

by dance_the_code



Series: Conference Wives [13]
Category: Numb3rs (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_the_code/pseuds/dance_the_code
Summary: Freshman Flu claims a few victims...this is an older story of mine that didn't relocate with the rest if conference wives...no idea why. If you recognize it, its not mine.
Relationships: Ian Edgerton/Charlie Eppes
Series: Conference Wives [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/490267
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	1. Patients 0 and .5

Ian barely understood what Charlie had said on the phone, but apparently he was coming home early and so was Isaac.

Ian hunted through the cupboards for something that could be used to bake a treat for the two most important people in his life, but was coming up empty. He needed to make certain baking supplies ended up on the house grocery list.

It had been a hectic couple weeks, a lot of Charlie’s students and colleagues had been sick, cases had been more complicated than usual and Ian was actually happy with having to take his mandatory 3 day post-snipe leave. It meant he could catch his breath and now Charlie and Isaac were coming home early.

The car that pulled into the driveway was not Charlie’s, not Larry’s, not Don’s…it was completely unfamiliar. He reached for the drawer were he kept one of his handguns locked up, but within access and was about to unlock it when he recognized the math department secretary helping Charlie and Isaac out of the car.

This was not good.

Ian sprinted out of the house. “What happened?”

The secretary looked up at Ian. “Oh, I am so glad someone is here. They caught it. I thought Dr. Eppes would skip it this year.”

Ian glowered at the woman. “Caught what?”

She smiled ruefully. “The freshman flu! Dr. Eppes almost passed out in math for non-mathematicians before he realized he’d come down with it. So, get them to bed, plenty of liquids, plenty of rest. Hot showers, mentholated rub – take good care of them, midterms are coming up!”

She maneuvered Charlie and Isaac to Ian’s side and then ducked back into her car. “Oh! And hand sanitizer! You don’t want to get this!”

Ian looked at the car as it pulled out of the driveway and then at the miserable duo of Eppeses now in his possession. He picked Isaac up and placed him in Charlie’s arms and then scooped up the mathematician.

He carried them upstairs, tucked them in bed and returned to the kitchen.

This was not the time to bake, this was the time to make chicken soup and lemon popsicles.

He put the chicken on to boil to make stock and boiled lemon juice, sugar and water into a syrup before setting it aside to cool,there were popsicle molds somewhere, he would have to locate them.

He called Don and requested the items on the secretary’s list along with whatever the pharmacist recommended for Isaac.

He made tea. He took blankets from the linen closet and ran them through a short cycle of the drier. He found the popsicle molds, washed them and poured the cooled liquid into the molds and stuck them in the freezer.

He carried them upstairs and nested the Eppeses into their warmth. Charlie nodded a thank you and sniffled, pitifully.

Ian sought out all the tissue boxes in the house and brought them to the bedroom.  
Smith and Wesson brought their newly chewed finds from the hall and hopped up on the bed to keep them company.

Ian brought some of Isaac’s favorite books to the bedside and settled in to read father and son to sleep while he waited for supplies.


	2. Freshman Flu 1/?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian catches a disease he's never heard of...

“No offense, Ian, but you look like shit.” Cooper passed Ian a bottle of water.

“Charlie’s been sick, Isaac too. I’ve been looking after them, I just need a little more sleep, maybe more caffeine.” Ian twisted the cap on the bottle feeling befuddled as it seemed an almost impossible task to remove the plastic top.

“You need me to open that for you?” Cooper did not even try to hide a grin.

“No, no it’s fine…my head is killing me.”

Don walked into the break room. “Hell no…Ian, get out of here.” Don began backing away as though the sniper was showing signs of bubonic plague or demonic possession. “Coop, get away from him, go get a hot shower, Ian, go home.”

“Don, I’m feeling a little under the weather, but…”

“Ian, I have seen this a hundred times, you have the freshman flu. Get out of here, go home.”

“The what?” Ian tried to raise an eyebrow, but for some reason it felt as though his forehead was encased in concrete.

“The freshman flu, a nice, viral-bacterial health disaster that breeds in college dorms. Once it hits faculty and graduate students it could be harnessed as a biological weapon and eradicate a third world country – go home now.”

Ian shook his head. “Don, you can’t be serious!”

“Ian, trust me, go home and have Charlie look after you until you get better.”

Ian raised his head and looked at Don with bloodshot eyes. “I can’t be sick…Charlie and Isaac are the ones that have been sick…I don’t get sick…”

Don shook his head. “Ian, you have it, go home before you give it to the entire office.”

Ian stood up and pitched forward as vertigo hit. “Perhaps…I am unwell.”

Don growled. “Cooper, call Charlie, have him come get Ian. Ian, sit down and drink the water, don’t…try not to breathe on anyone"


	3. Freshman Flu 2/?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie and Isaac look after Ian

Ian barely remembered Charlie’s arrival at the office. He thought that he might have fallen asleep in the elevator, but was absolutely certain that he had slept through the drive back to the house.

Isaac stayed close as Charlie helped Ian maneuver the stairs.

Isaac watched intently as Charlie tucked Ian into bed.

“Merlin sick?”

Charlie nodded. “Yes and since Merlin took such good care of us, we get to take good care of him.”

“Okay…Merlin need a bath?”

Charlie contemplated this a moment. “Not right now, but we can go downstairs and make Merlin some soup and some tea.”

“Mmkay! Merlin can have aleph-bet soup?”

Charlie smiled remembering Isaac’s happiness when he had found Hebrew alphabet noodles at the grocery store. “If we have any left Merlin can have aleph-bet soup.”

Isaac grinned. “And 3.14159?”

“Maybe Merlin would like 3.14159’s company, but maybe Smith and Wesson would be better company for him, that way you still have 3.14159 to sleep with tonight.”

“Mmkay!” Isaac ran ahead of his father into the kitchen and then opened the door for the dogs.  
“Smith! Wesson! Merlin is sick! Go make him better!”

Charlie watched the two hunting dogs run through the kitchen and up the stairs, leaving a trail of muddy paw prints. He made a mental note to grab fresh sheets and blankets before he brought up the soup and tea.

He wet a dishtowel with water from the tap. “Isaac, can you take this upstairs and clean off Smith and Wesson’s paws for me while I start the soup?”

“Mmkay!” Isaac scrambled for the stairs.

“Hold the rail!” Charlie called after him hunting through the cabinets for chicken broth and noodles.

“Mmkay!” Isaac held the rail and took the stairs one at a time.


	4. Freshman Flu 3/?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie and Isaac continue to look after Ian

Ian peered blearily out of his blankets at Charlie. “Vhat iz eet?” His nose so clogged that every word reverberated in his sinus cavity and he could have taken any role in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard with no accent coaching.

“Soup and medicine.” Charlie settled onto the bed next to him.

Ian started to nod his assent, then thought better of it as the only thing really seeming to move was his pounding headache from one side of his skull to the other.

Charlie rubbed mentholated gunk on his chest and helped him eat his soup. “I am sorry we gave you the freshman flu.”

Ian resorted to looking pitiful as he really did not feel like talking.

“I don’t actually think you have it too bad…there was once when I was consulting on a project for the pentagon that I had it so bad they needed to get Marshall Penfield to take over for me. Then he messed something up and I had to rework everything…but I was still sick and thought I needed to do the math because Penfield had developed a homicidal mania against Buddhists.”

Ian was not really certain if it was the mention of Penfield’s name that was causing his head to throb or the fact that he couldn’t really sort out how this story meant he was not as sick as he thought he must be.

Charlie pressed a cool cloth against his forehead. “Anyway, it turned out that Penfield had refused to use my equations, so he wasn’t taking landscape into account when calculating target vectors, he had the army or the navy or some section of the military all set up to decimate a herd of llamas. The animals, not the Buddhists, but you couldn’t have explained that to me at the time…I was pretty high on Theraflu.”

Ian pondered this a moment and then decided against pondering. Pondering was overrated. He pressed a kiss to Charlie’s t-shirt sleeve and disappeared back into the blankets.

“Ian? Okay, I know it wasn’t a very interesting story but you need to drink this… Cooper says it will make you feel better.”

Ian glowered at Charlie from within the blankets, wondering what he had done to make Charlie suddenly want to kill him.

“Ian, its either this or Theraflu and you didn’t like the Theraflu.”

“Vhat izz eeen eet?” Ian rasped.

“Honey, water, cinnamon, ginger root, cloves, lemon juice and brandy.”

Ian grunted an affirmative.

Charlie held the mug while Ian drank and then tucked him in as the sniper drifted off.


	5. Freshman Flu 4/?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams under the influencevif the freshman flu...

Granted, Ian was not the type who enjoyed dreaming all that much. The majority of dreams that came to him usually replayed shots he took that he hadn’t felt entirely good about, stupid kids, suicidal madmen, women with more issues than he cared to figure out, kill shots that just seemed a waste. But, well…the freshman flu was giving him the opportunity to live out a rather bloody little fantasy that he would never, ever, pain of death, reveal to an FBI shrink, no way, no how, no doing.

Why his mind was conjuring his target wearing a costume from Wagner’s Lohengrin, the female lead, try as he could his brain could not come up with her name and he knew it was one he knew, was beyond him, but it did make it easy to find the bastard.

He lined up his sights and just as Penfield opened his mouth to sing the aria from act I.

“Bang!”

Don watched the sniper for a moment and then turned to Charlie. “Are you sure you don’t need help looking after him, Chuck?”

Charlie looked over. “No, he’s fine.”

“Charlie, he’s kneeling on the bed, resting his elbow on the dog, lining up sights through your son’s teddy bear’s ears, shouldering a floor lamp and sniping something.”

Charlie looked over. “Don, he’s still in bed and the lamp’s not loaded, everything is fine. He’s getting better. He was even singing earlier.”

Don looked back at the sniper again. “Singing? What was he singing?”

Charlie shrugged. “No idea, but apparently the dogs know it, they sang along.”

Don looked at his brother a long minute. “Chuck, I’m going to go take the lamp away.”

Charlie shook his head. “Just walk in and say target neutralized and he’ll put it back and curl up and sleep.”

“What?”

“Don, he’s been doing this all day, we have established a pattern. Just walk in, say target neutralized and he will put everything away like a good little sniper and curl up under the blankets to sleep.”

“Seriously? Did you just call the man who strikes fear in the hearts of multitudes, a good little sniper?”

Charlie shrugged. “Don, he has the freshman flu, everyone who gets the freshman flu reverts to behavioral patterns associated with young children until they feel better, so right now, he’s a good little sniper, next week he can go back to striking fear, right now, he’s just cute.”

Charlie brushed past Don and whispered in Ian’s ear. “Target neutralized.”

Ian sighed in his sleep, returned the rifle and the scope to their proper locations and settled back into the blankets.

Don shook his head. “Good little sniper.”


	6. Spread it around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian and Cooper are not exactly friends. But this isn’t a gift you give your friends..

Cooper was pretty sure he had turned the shower on as hot as it would go. 

Just...it seemed like he couldn’t get warm. Maybe there was something wrong with the water heater. 

He stepped out from under the spray. No, the mirror was fogged up. He had forgotten to turn on the exhaust fan again. Dammit. He reached over and flipped the switch. No. That was the light. Why was it so bright? How did he not realize he was showering in the dark? He flipped the switch again and the one next to it. There, that was the sound of the fan, but it was so loud. 

He ducked back into the shower. His legs felt like loosely set jello and not for any good reason. 

He leaned against the wall and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor of the shower stall. 

Maybe he would just stay put forward a moment. 

His head would feel better if he did. He was sure.


	7. This is not okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don finds Cooper in the shower. This is not as sexy as it should be.

Don came into the apartment, arms full of grocery bags. He grinned imagining how Coop was going to take the news that Edgerton was sniping imaginary things with a lamp and being called a good little sniper. 

He set the grocery bags on the counter. He heard the shower on in the en suite and quickly tossed perishables into the fridge. There was no reason to skip the opportunity of joining Coop for a little clean up...it could get fantastically dirty. 

He was surprised to find that the door to the bathroom was left open. 

That was a little odd for Coop if he was taking a shower when Don wasn’t home. 

Don entered the bathroom cautiously. 

There was water on the floor and the room was stifling hot, thick with steam.

Don looked at the shower stall and found Cooper on the floor.

Bright red.

Don reached in and shut off the shower. 

He dropped to his knees and checked Cooper’s pulse and breathing. Pulse was fine, breathing a little ragged, phlegmy. 

Cooper opened his eyes, but they didn’t focus. 

“Coop?”

“Eppes? Why is it so cold?”

“Come on, Coop, let’s get you off the floor.”

“I’m on the floor?”

“Yeah and you parboiled yourself. I think Edgerton gave you the Freshman Flu.”

“He shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think too.” Don levered Cooper up off the floor. “Okay, here we go. Let’s get you dried off and back in bed. You’re going to stay there for a while.”

“Eppes, I don’t want to stay in bed without you.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll be close by, but I don’t want to get this. We can’t both be sick.”

“I’m sick?”

“Oh yeah. You’ve got a fever and everything.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. Come on. I’ll order some soup.”

Don dried Cooper off and tucked him back into bed, grabbing some extra blankets. Cooper shivered and burrowed under the blankets. Don ran a hand through his hair. He wondered how fast the freshman flu was going to make its way through the office. Ian had come in sick and now Cooper had it. He sat on the edge of the bed and made a list of things that might help Cooper feel better, all the things that worked on Charlie. 

He stayed in the bedroom until Cooper started a soft snore. 

He walked back into the kitchen and called the office, letting them know Cooper was sick, likely the same thing that took Edgerton out. He called the store and put in his order for freshman flu supplies. He found the menu for their local Chinese restaurant and ordered half th soup options on the menu, Cooper wasn’t picky. He grabbed the Lysol and paper towels from under the sink and started cleaning any surface he thought Cooper might have touched in the last 24 hours. 

He cursed every single Freshman at CalSci. He contemplated calling Charlie and getting the list of names so he could be specific about it.


	8. Soup for you. All the soup for you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don looks after Cooper.

The entire apartment was possibly cleaner than it had been when Don first moved in. 

The chemical smell was soothing in that false sense of security, as though massive amounts of elbow grease and bleach could ward off the miasma. 

Cooper had woken when Don moved into the bedroom and started cleaning, then buried his nose under the blankets and muttered something that Don had no hope of understanding. It might have been about mushrooms and world domination. 

When the medication options arrived from the store, Don gave Cooper a good dose of drugs. Cooper disagreed that this was a good idea, but drank the Theraflu with minimal complaints. He was quiet, aside from the coughing and sniffling. 

It was a little unnerving. Cooper liked to talk, had the Irish gift of gab, especially if he could get a rise out of Don. He took it as part of his role in their relationship to chase Don out of the dark corners of his mind with random chatter. Now, the only chatter was Coop’s teeth. 

Don sat on the bed and pulled Cooper close so he could sit up enough to drink soup from the container. “Come on, Coop. Soup for you.”

Cooper nodded and sipped from the container, quietly trusting that Eppes knew how to fix this mess.


End file.
